Rocky Cape Christian Community

in Joining a Christian Community, Ruin Valuable Friendships in the Process, and Become an Agent of the Devil in Destroying the Church of Jesus Christ

1.   No one joins a Christian community without imagining what it might be like, dreaming about it (sometimes for months and years), and making plans on how to fulfil those dreams. Whatever happens to you, no matter how rudely other people (particularly the members of the community you have chosen) may upset and shatter those dreams, never let them go. Never settle for the obvious facts of the matter—simple reality—but let your creative imagination guide you until you find exactly what you had in mind.       

2.   When you hear of a community that sparks your interest, make plans at once to join it. Don’t bother visiting for a month or two first. Just sell your stuff, set your moving date, and go. Expect everyone to be pleased with your arrival.

3.   Take stock of yourself—your education, abilities, talents, and willingness to serve your new brothers and sisters in Christ. Make sure they become aware of what you have to offer and watch for opportunities to put your skills to good use.

4.   If you have any particular dream (like finishing college, learning how to fly, studying medicine, or getting an electrician’s licence) be sure to let the community know about it. Most likely the brothers and sisters have funds to make your dream come true, and stand more than willing to help you become all you were meant to be.

5.   Do not let your rebellious, unruly, or poorly trained children get in the way of joining a Christian community. Rest assured that competent people will surround you and quickly bring everything and everyone into line. Depend on communal living to solve your family’s problems.

6.   If you face difficulties in your marriage (anything from little day-to-day squabbles to major divorce-threatening fights), do not bother mentioning them to the community before joining. Waste no time working on those problems—just depend on your new life in community to transform your marriage and bring wonderful peace and order into your home.  

7.   Don’t settle into the community without vowing to stay there for good. Let all the members know that you are “into this for life” and come what may, you will stick with it. Expect them to take you seriously.

8.   Before coming into the community—or promptly thereafter—try to establish what makes Christian communities work, how they should function, and what it takes to keep them going. Stick to your conclusions at all costs and help others to see their logic and value as well.

9.   On arriving in the community, take good notice of how the people receive you. Those that seem less than enthusiastic about your coming are probably not as spiritually-minded as the rest. Don’t waste too much time getting to know them. They probably won’t make good friends anyway.

10. While settling into communal living, don’t focus on communicating with Jesus up in heaven. Look at his visible body on earth, and learn how to work with it. Seeing the body is seeing Jesus, so concentrate on nothing but that.  

11. Don’t bog yourself down with reading your Bible too much, or spending too much time in prayer and meditation. Rather, do everything you can with your new friends, working and playing with them, visiting, and getting familiar with them.

12. Give yourself plenty of time to find your place in the communal work force. If no one gives you anything to do, just stick to your apartment, read the books you have long wanted to read, speak with your far-away friends on the phone, or write e-mails. The community will find out soon enough where your talents lie, and will want to make good use of them.

13. Try to find your new friends’ sense of humour, and keep the atmosphere as light-hearted as you can. Swap jokes and be funny to build relationships with them—especially with the young people and children.

14. Learn everything you can about your community’s past and what it has historically believed. If you see its members falling away from that or lowering their standards in any way, challenge them to return to the convictions of their forefathers. Do not spare them! Be a living example to them of their own history, and if they don’t appreciate it, quote their own books in your defence.

15. Don’t let the often boring or trifling realities of daily living (how to make money, which truck to buy or sell, who should work where and what) ruin the charm of your new life in community. Focus on its romantic aspects—evenings around the campfire, great pageants and special events, the poetry, artwork, and cultural heritage of the people around you. Never let your daily work and activities eclipse the joy of living “out of this world” in the dawning glory of the Kingdom of Heaven.

16. If there is anything you don’t like to do or have no interest in learning (such as how to work on a farm, or handle animals), inform the community at once. Don’t let them give you a job for which you have no particular inclination. Worse yet, don’t let them give your children a job they may not want, or hinder them in any way from pursuing the career of their choice.  

17. Just because you have joined a community does not mean you must take on a “doormat mentality” (letting everyone walk over you as they please). You still have your own life to live, your goals to pursue, along with your own background and temperament to deal with. Just “be yourself” regardless of where there puts you in the eyes of others.

18. If you need money to travel, to take a week off with your family, or buy a gift for someone you love, don’t hesitate to ask for it. Everyone else in the community gets what they need. And newcomers, with most or all of their family far away from the community, will of course need to travel much more than those born and raised within it. Expect everyone to understand and appreciate that.

19. Don’t be too quick to accept the community’s help with things you don’t really need or want. Perhaps they just offer it to make you feel indebted to them or obligated to stay in the community forever. Watch out for “strings attached.”

20. On the other hand, keep your eyes open to what everyone else is getting and to what they already have. If they give you less, or of poorer quality, take note. They may be discriminating against you. They may be trying in subtle ways to get rid of you, or perhaps they are just selfish and greedy, like people in the world.

21. Take special note of what happens when you ask for help. Do the people of the community seem eager to give it? If not, try to determine why. Are they just having a rough time accepting you as newcomers, or do they in fact live only for themselves in the midst of community—the greatest hypocrites around? Just having a common purse and living on one piece of land does not automatically make people generous or Christ-like, you know.

22. If you are a single person, concentrate on building good relationships with those of the opposite sex. Communities often have a problem finding mates for their younger members. The sooner they discover your interests along that line, the more eagerly they will accept you. If you are an older man, already married, pay special attention to the ladies anyway. Not getting around so much in society, they will enjoy you becoming familiar with them, and appreciate you taking an interest in their lives.

23. Everyone needs a really special friend. Decide early in your life at the community who that friend will be and stick closely to him or her. Keep telling that friend everything that happens to you, exactly how you feel about what goes on, and whatever else occurs to you during the day. Don’t worry about spending all your free time with your special friend, making lots of phone calls (even at night if necessary), or calling on your friend to help you when things go wrong. After all, isn’t that what friends are for?

24. Avoid telling your new friends about your innermost personal affairs. In case you ever leave the community they might use the information against you. But encourage them to tell you everything there is to know about them. Ask lots of personal questions. The more you know about their intimate affairs, their past sins, and current struggles, the better you may evaluate what communal living does to a person and how it will affect you.

25. If you have children, watch out they don’t get too attached to the community—for sure not right away. Keep them in such a frame of mind that if you ever decide to leave they will all come with you. Never let their loyalty to the community supersede their loyalty to you and your family.

26. Rather than approach other members of the community with your frustrations, do your “exploding” at home. Your marriage partner and children will know how to absorb it. Others may not.

27. Monitor your emotions carefully. If you sense yourself becoming so attached to the community that it would be hard to leave—simply because you love the people and have grown so used to them—watch out! That may be what they call a “cult mentality,” the psychological pressure that makes people do bizarre things (even against their conscience or better knowledge) just to keep on belonging to the group of their choice. It happens particularly in communal groups, and as the news will tell you, it is a power they often manipulate or abuse.  

28. Even though you may enjoy becoming like your community in many ways, watch out for meaningless conformity—doing things like everyone else just to “fit in.” Unless you have a good reason to change, keep on doing things basically the way you have always done them (eating and sleeping habits, dress styles, preferences in music, recreation, travel, etc.). Communities easily strangle themselves in their own uniformity, everyone looking, speaking, and acting like everyone else, until they become like so many robots or clones. Try to add as much variety to the scene as you can.

29. If you have deeper convictions than the community in any area (like on how to dress and what kind of material to use for your clothes, on keeping the Sabbath and certain holidays, on vegetarian eating, on home schooling, and on refusing to watch videos or listen to instrumental music) by all means keep them. Wherever you find yourself ahead of the community in your walk with Christ, be a shining example to the rest. Even though no one understands you or appreciates what you do, insist on living out your convictions at all costs. That is the only way to be a witness to the rest, and your family needs to grow up knowing that the community will never get between you and doing what is right.  

30. Don’t try to make friends with everyone in the community. That could be overwhelming. Just sort out the ones you can best relate to, those you really trust, and concentrate on building close relationships with them.  

31. Don’t be quick to place your children under the influence of other families, children, and young people. Keep them to yourself as much as you can, and remind them constantly that you want to “stay together as a family” through all this.

32. Don’t expect too much of an old traditional community—especially one in which most of the members do not have a decent education or know how to speak English correctly. Don’t expect them to understand your logic or be convinced by the hard facts you present to them. Even though your own intellect far surpasses theirs, deal gently with them, overlooking their superstitions and needless fear of the unknown. Bear in mind that all they have been doing for the last five centuries is raising their large families and keeping their communities running. Never expect their reasoning skills to match your own, or that of the people you knew and worked with in the world.    

33. Let everyone in the community know how hard it was for you to give up certain ideas and ways of doing things to join them. They need to know that you have made a great sacrifice, and really “condescended to men of low estate” by choosing to live among them.

34. Make the most of your testimony—sharing what you left behind (your lovely house and furniture, your new vehicle, your good house, job, friends, opportunities, and standing in society) whenever you have a ready audience. It will challenge and impress them (most people in the community actually having given up very little, if anything at all) and help them appreciate you more.

35. If you see people doing anything dangerous or wrong in the community, tell them at once. Present better ways of doing things, and help them see their mistakes. Watch especially for mistakes in teaching, doctrine, and practice. Communities tend to get into a rut with how they do things, so do your part as a newcomer to help them out of it.  

36. Analyse carefully what goes on around you, both good and bad, and decide how it will affect your family on the long run. If your children are still small, take special thought for what they may want to do when they grow up, or how they might relate to this, that, and the other, ten to fifteen years from now. Don’t just think about the present. Concentrate on everything that could take place between now and the end of your life—even with what could take place in following generations.

37. If you have general concerns to share with the community, by all means do so as quickly as you get the chance. Make sure everyone understands the reason for your concern, the results of not taking it seriously, and that you really cannot stay in the community unless things change.

38. Keep reminding people that you are still “sorting things out” and depending how it goes, you will not be able to make this your permanent home. Don’t let them think you have swallowed everything, “hook, line, and sinker” or get too comfortable with your commitment. You will need something (like the threat of leaving) for bargaining power.  

39. If you voice your concerns and people do not really listen, or act unreceptive toward them, let everyone know that your concerns are really important to you. This is something you have thought about and believed for years. In fact, if it hadn’t been for concerns like this, you would never have come to the community to begin with.

40. Or, if people do not listen to your concerns, just shut up. If they don’t want to listen they’ll pay for it sooner or later. Don’t try changing what is hopeless, or beyond repair.

41. Avoid listening only to the leaders of the community and their “official version” of what goes on. If you really want to know the truth, search out the quieter (perhaps slightly more aloof, or critical members) and find out what they have to say. Particularly in areas where they question the leadership, or the community’s policies as a whole, pay careful attention and go by your own judgement of the matter.

42. If others on the community are having problems with the leadership, or any aspect of their life together, listen carefully to what they have to say. After all, if they can’t make it, how could you? They have been there a lot longer than you and must know better what the problems really are. You may learn a lot from them.

43. Rather than wasting time with the older generation (usually pretty “set in their ways”) focus on building close relationships with the young, particularly teenagers with a vision that surpasses that of the community as a whole. Encourage them to think and act for themselves. Challenge them with the faults of the community (weak or erratic leadership, lack of interest in education, poor management, unscriptural traditions, etc.) and inspire them with greater things.

44. Decide where to put your limits. Tolerate things up to a point, but if it goes beyond that, waste no more time trying to adjust to life in community. It probably won’t work anyway, and you may as well start making plans on where to go next. Don’t ruin your life trying to force a situation (pushing a square peg into a round hole) when the world is full of other delightful options.

45. Once you have problems in the community or find yourself struggling with certain issues, don’t wear yourself out trying to be sociable or working with the rest. Spend as much time as you can in your room, or in your apartment, by yourself. Even “getting away from it all” for a weekend, or longer, can be a great help.   

46. Do not worry about attending the community’s meetings—for sure not if you find them boring, long-winded, or dull. Just stay home if you feel like it, and listen to cassettes of “real” preaching, or read stimulating magazines from other church groups and missions.  

47. If you come to where you realise you won’t make it—the community you chose just not being the place for you—never think you made a mistake. Don’t be too hard on yourself or go on a guilt trip because of it. Just take the whole experience as from the Lord, thanking him for everything you learned, and for what everyone else learned because of you. Rest assured that moving into the community (even if you leave in a few months or a year) was worth it, and that you were just following the Lord’s leading.  

48. Deal with homesickness for “the old life” by asking the community for permission to spend a day in town, to go shopping with your spouse, or eat out at the kind of place you have not seen for a long time. Increase your correspondence (especially through e-mails and telephone calls) with friends and acquaintances outside the community—particularly those that have experience in dealing with communal situations and ex-communitarians of all types.

49. Actually, it doesn’t take long (only a few months or a year) to have a community figured out. Once that has occurred, trust your own judgement completely. Don’t let anyone talk you into thinking the situation is not as bad as it looks. If it looks bad to you—leave. No one has the right to make you stay where you have no desire to be.

50. Of course you may leave the community just as quickly as you decided to join it. No one will keep you from it. But it is not necessary. Take your time. Don’t jump from the frying pan into the fire. Use your stay at the community to explore better possibilities. With the community’s telephone and e-mail services at your disposal, its vehicles with which to go on field trips, and your family and expenses taken care of in the meantime, take full advantage of your situation. Take your time sifting through job and church opportunities, finding out what’s available so you may choose wisely where to go next, and when (keeping all this quiet enough, of course, to avoid getting “kicked out” before you are ready.) Don’t expect the people of the community to catch on what you are doing at this stage, or to treat you any differently because of it. They owe it to you to let you “sort things out.”

51. As for your convictions on living in community—don’t worry. The theme is a pretty flexible one and can be suited to almost any situation. (Nearly everyone—if you stop and think about it—lives in some form of community or another. It just depends on how you define and interpret it.) With a bit of creativity you can go on “living in community” with Christ, in nearly any church, environment, or work situation you might find. Basically, it’s a matter of the heart. (And as you have seen by now, just living from a common purse and eating together, doesn’t make everyone a good communitarian either!)

52. When you do finally leave the community be sure to tell everyone how deeply you appreciated your time with them, how much they have come to mean to you, and what all you have learned from them. Promise them you’ll be back, and that you’ll keep in touch. Take for granted that everyone will respect and love you for this attitude.

53. After leaving the community, present yourself as an authority on the subject of communal living. Share your experiences with the wide range of support groups, evangelistic churches, and individuals taking special interest in men and women they have “rescued” from communal situations around the world. Before you know it, you’ll have more new friends than you can count—all linked by the negative experiences you have in common. Share your “testimony” before large audiences in church, publish it in book form, or on the Internet, and you may become relatively “famous.” The world shows recurring interest in people that leave religious communities—particularly those with juicy stories to tell.

54. Whatever you do, be sure to keep contact with those that became your closest friends in the community (those who shared your concerns and struggled with the exact problems that finally caused you to leave). Make it a point to keep visiting them, particularly when the community’s leaders are not home, or after dark.

If these fifty-four instructions impress you as too complicated, do not worry—you won’t have to follow them all to fail miserably in joining a Christian community, ruin valuable friendships in the process, and become an agent of the devil in destroying the church of Jesus Christ.

Even by following just a few of them—two or three perhaps—you should get that accomplished fairly soon.

On the other hand, if you change your mind and decide you might like to become a stable, permanent, and useful member of a Christian community, form priceless friendships in the process, and become an agent of the Holy Spirit in building the church of Jesus Christ—go to the next instalment of this series.

Peter Hoover
10 October 2003